How to erase my harddrive?

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performa636cdperforma636cd
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I got my PowerBook back from having having its harddrive replaced and it came back with 10.3.5 installed. Anyways, I want to wipe the harddrive completely and install 10.4 Tiger. However, when I go into disk utility, it won't let me erase since all the options and buttons listed under "erase" are greyed out.



What am I doing wrong? How can I zero the data and start from scratch?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    ricksbrainricksbrain Posts: 517member
    You can open disk utility from your OS X install disk-- the boot disk can't erase itself while in use. At least, I believe this will work.
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  • Reply 2 of 5
    performa636cdperforma636cd Posts: 187member
    How do I go about doing that? Do I restart my PowerBook with the Tiger disk inside and hold a certain key?
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  • Reply 3 of 5
    ricksbrainricksbrain Posts: 517member
    If you put the disk in, it should automatically open a window to install os x. click ok and it will restart your computer.



    Once the installer opens, if you go into the menu on the top of the screen, find disk utility and open it. From there, the rest should be fairly self-explanatory. I believe there are options for erasing-- zero everything out (takes a long time and overwrites the entire drive) or just erase the directories (or something like that) that knows where to look to find your files (the data could possibly be recovered by someone because it has not been overwitten).



    Hope this helps.
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  • Reply 4 of 5
    performa636cdperforma636cd Posts: 187member
    merci.



    doing a 7 pass wipe right now



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  • Reply 5 of 5
    ricksbrainricksbrain Posts: 517member
    Congrats. Glad it worked.
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